Every day feels like a fresh horror in the world of video games.

And look, no matter what happens to the, quote, industry, the art isn't going away, the medium

isn't going away.

But it does feel like we are in a crash, a great time of change, and it can be hard to hold in your head so much darkness clouds

what's happening in games. And yet I'm playing so many incredible things. How do I reconcile

these two, or do I just live with the fact that I can't? Where does one find hope in this weird darkness?

So I went shopping for that hope when I was at Pax East. I've done these interview series at

Summer Game Fest at different Paxes before. And what I tried to look for here was not just people

doing interesting things,

but what were things that gave me hope that inspired me, that I, when I think about like,

what do I want video games to be? These games, these people, these creatives, these teams,

they spoke to me in some way. And of course, it's so easy

to have a long conversation with someone like Zavale or Nelson Jr., who's been on Remap Radio

before, who I've interviewed before, you know him from El Paso elsewhere, you know him from like

the million games that strained scaffold chips. I know him because he's going to be a voice in the upcoming Hellraiser video game,

which we will, of course, follow up on and do a dedicated podcast in the future.

But it was talking with paranormal activity threshold designer Brian Clark,

who's also responsible for the excellent mortuary assistant,

about what makes him inspired to assistant, about what makes him

inspired to scare people, what makes him excited to make games. It was talking to several

designers who are in the remap community, who are either first-time designers or struck out on

their own, taking financial and creative risks, or saying, I'm a lawyer,

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